Class of '48 memorabilia has been gathered for the reunion. Member Betty Griesing keeps much of it in her garage.

A handful of women gathered in the living room of an old friend Thursday, clad in matching white T-shirts that read: “You can take a girl out of th’ Grove … but you can’t take th’ Grove out of th’ girl.”

With smiles and chuckles, Coeta Redd, Jetta Harris, Betty Griesing, Alta Owens and Juanita Wood recalled blind dates, slumber parties and trips to the movies as they reminisced about their days at Pleasant Grove High School. The women, all members of the Class of 1948, are gearing up for their 65th high school reunion to be held June 22.

Their graduating class had about 75 students, about two-thirds of whom have died. When the reunion is held every two years, the number of occupied chairs drops, Owens said. This year they expect about 32 of their peers, not just from 1948 but from the classes of 1939-57.

“These classmates are my dearest friends,” said Griesing, who stores boxes of yearbooks, photo albums and a display board of her class’s 27 military veterans in her garage. She exhibits the mementos at the reunions. “They’re just like brothers and sisters, and the boys, they’re all the same. We love each other, we hug, we kiss. They’re just part of our family, and we care what happens.”

Redd recalled that a radio station once called Pleasant Grove “the garden spot of America.” The once rural area on the edge of Dallas is now a densely populated urban area. “Dallas was a wonderful place to grow up,” Redd said. “We didn’t have shopping centers and stuff; you went downtown.”

In the past 65 years, Pleasant Grove’s landscape and demographics have changed and the high school, which stood near Buckner Boulevard and Lake June Road, no longer exists.

In 1954, Pleasant Grove Independent School District was annexed by Dallas Independent School District and by 1957 Samuell High School had replaced Pleasant Grove High. Over the years the area’s population has transformed from predominantly white to primarily black and Hispanic.

When they went to school, the women wore poodle and ballerina skirts, canvas slip-on shoes and saddle oxfords. They weren’t allowed to wear pants; entertainment was listening to the radio; and they walked and biked instead of using cars.

“We were not worried about shootings in the schools or drugs or alcohol,” Griesing said. “If somebody got out of line, the principal gave him a few licks and sent him home and Dad gave him another few.”

“We had the best of times, I’m convinced of that,” Wood said.

As they’ve aged, each has fallen into a specific role within their group of friends. Griesing, who now lives in Athens, is the memorabilia keeper; Harris, of Rockwall, is the artist; Owens is the party host; the women describe Redd, of Mesquite, as their laughter; and Wood, of Dallas, makes all of the phone calls, keeping everyone close. All widowed, the close-knit group talked about how those phone conversations have evolved to focus on who is sickly and who can remember what.

Among the five friends, they’ve raised 11 children and count 21 grandchildren and 28 great-grandchildren. After high school, two went on to open a real estate agency together and one started an auto shop with her husband. They’ve moved to places as distant as Florida and California, but they’ve all returned to Texas and still tout their Pleasant Grove roots.

“We are unique,” Owens said about the members of the class of ’48, who plan lunches about every two months. “And I think it’s time that something good is said about Pleasant Grove, and we’re a product of Pleasant Grove.”